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| Preface | ||
| 1 | Introduction | 1 |
| 1.1 | Types of Historical Connection | 4 |
| 1.2 | Traditional Metrics | 6 |
| 2 | Statistical Methodology | 17 |
| 2.1 | Traditional Methodologies | 17 |
| 2.2 | Tests for Association | 20 |
| 2.2.1 | Contingency Tables | 20 |
| 2.2.2 | Significance | 22 |
| 2.3 | Statistical Approaches to Historical Linguistics | 30 |
| 2.4 | Tests Using Sound Recurrence | 33 |
| 3 | Significance Testing | 43 |
| 4 | Tests in Different Environments | 57 |
| 5 | Size of the Word Lists | 65 |
| 6 | Precision and Lumping | 73 |
| 6.1 | Semantic Fuzziness | 74 |
| 6.2 | Phonetic Lumping | 77 |
| 6.3 | Semantic Lumping | 79 |
| 7 | Nonarbitrary Vocabulary | 83 |
| 7.1 | Grammatical Elements | 95 |
| 8 | Historical Connection vs. Relatedness | 103 |
| 9 | Language-Internal Cognates | 117 |
| 9.1 | Item Deletion | 128 |
| 9.2 | Trimming Words | 132 |
| 9.3 | Stratificational Approaches | 143 |
| 10 | Recurrence Metrics | 145 |
| 10.1 | Chi-Squared Versus Recurrence | 145 |
| 10.2 | Phonetic Features | 152 |
| 10.3 | Multiple Phoneme Matches | 158 |
| 10.4 | Subsample Averaging | 174 |
| 10.5 | Multilateral Comparisons | 175 |
| 11 | Conclusions | 181 |
| 11.1 | Recipe | 181 |
| 11.2 | Appraisal | 191 |
| App.: Word Lists | 199 | |
| References | 259 | |
| Index | 267 |
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Kevin King
reviewed The Significance of Word Lists: Statistical Tests for Investigating Historical Connections Between Languages on June 11, 2016
The Significance of Word Lists
Pretty good, for what it was. I would never have picked up a linguistics book if it weren't on my reading list for uni, but I did quite enjoy this, because I love English. Whilst I'm MORE interested in poems and stories that take words and use them in ways that send goosebumps racing over my skin, that make my heart clench or my pulse race or my eyes fill with tears, ways that pull me into a world or a person and don't let me go, I'm also interested in the way those words work.
A couple of fun facts:
70% of English words come from other languages, mostly Latin and French. A lot of our Latin-root words are conceptual, to do with religion, learning or abstracts. By contrast, a lot of our more concrete words, relating to physical things, are Germanic in route. This is because Latin was the prestige language, used for religion, law and literature, whereas Germanic Anglo-Saxon language was used for the day-to-day.
Ever wondered why spellings are often so different to pronunciations? It's because the Romans invaded Britain and imposed their Roman alphabet on the original Celtic languages, which were not Romantic languages. So we were forced to come up with weird letter combos to represent sounds, unlike, say, Spanish, which is a Romantic language, wherein most sounds are represented by just one letter, and it's normally said the way it's spelt.
Cool, right?
This book raised an interesting question for me because it showed me that I'm a puritan and a liberal all at once when it comes to language. Why do I shrink from "reforms" such as removing apostrophes (the very notion makes me ANGRY, I HAVE STRONG FEELINGS ABOUT PUNCTUATION, OK?), and yet am very happy to use "potensh", "lol" and "whatevs" in conversation? And if anyone calls me out on my use of text speak irl (I say "irl" quite a lot), I say, "pfft! Language is fluid!"
So there's a dichotomy there. I don't have the answers.
What do you think?
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Add The Significance of Word Lists: Statistical Tests for Investigating Historical Connections Between Languages, Similar words for similar concepts turn up in many widely scattered languages. Some linguists insist that this is simply due to chance while others claim that many if not all of the world's languages descended from a single prehistoric language. Yet neith, The Significance of Word Lists: Statistical Tests for Investigating Historical Connections Between Languages to the inventory that you are selling on WonderClubX
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Add The Significance of Word Lists: Statistical Tests for Investigating Historical Connections Between Languages, Similar words for similar concepts turn up in many widely scattered languages. Some linguists insist that this is simply due to chance while others claim that many if not all of the world's languages descended from a single prehistoric language. Yet neith, The Significance of Word Lists: Statistical Tests for Investigating Historical Connections Between Languages to your collection on WonderClub |